Twenty-Four hours before we were to be married--I offered to
shoot her.

Ten hours before our wedding--I made a mockery of her dying
wish.

Five hours before we were going to say our vows--I promised
I'd never love her.

One hour before I said I do--I vowed I'd never shed a tear
over her death.

But the minute we were pronounced man and wife--I knew.

I'd only use my gun to protect her.

I'd give my life for hers.

I'd cry.

And I would, most definitely, lose my heart, to a dying
girl---a girl who by all accounts should have
never been mine in the first
place.

I always believed the mafia would be my end game--where I'd
lose my heart, while it claimed my
soul. I could have never imagined. It would
be my redemption.

Or the beginning of something beautiful.

The beginning of her.

The end of us.

{ excerpt } .

Loneliness tasted like hell. It also, lucky for me, tasted like a fifth of whiskey and what would most likely be a throbbing headache come tomorrow morning.

I brought the bottle to my lips and tilted it back, my eyes trained on the fire in front of me, the flames licking higher and higher, reminding me that I wasn't exactly in any position to ask God for any favors…it may as well have been hell waving back at me and confirming my suspicions.

I'd killed too much.

I'd lied even more.

And I was officially out of favor within my family — within my world.

I hissed as a drip of whiskey landed on my blood-caked knuckles. Beating the shit out of the wall hadn't even stopped the anger.

Ah anger, that was something I could talk about, something I could tangibly feel as it pulsed through my body. It had been my mistress for so long that I knew if I actually let it go — I'd be even more lonely than I already was.

I tried to take a deep breath, to calm myself down, but air wouldn't go into my lungs, I felt paralyzed and on an adrenaline high all at once.

Maybe that was another part of my punishment. I had exactly twenty-four hours before I had to marry a Russian.

And not just any Russian.

An enemy, a double agent who had worked for both the FBI and, apparently, the Nicolasi family. She had sold out her own crime family, the Petrovs, and now… she was under the protection of the Italians.

How messed up was that?

I took another swig of whiskey and eyed the clock. Make that twenty-three hours and fifty-eight minutes.

I wasn't drunk enough.

I wasn't even close.

Marrying someone for protection I could do. Marrying someone and even killing them afterwards? Piece of cake. After all, that was my MO. I was a killer, a ghost, whatever the family wanted me to be.

But marrying someone, keeping them safe, only to watch them die within six months?

No. Hell no.

She had leukemia.

So why keep her alive this long?

I snorted and took another sip of whiskey. "I'd be doing her a favor by killing her."

"Ouch," a light airy voice said from somewhere in the room, causing all my hair to stand on end. "So as far as pep talks go, yours officially needs work."

I carefully set down the whiskey, not trusting myself not to throw it in her direction in an anger-filled rage. "I was talking to myself."

"Another sign you need to get laid." She laughed.

I didn't.

"Go away, Arabella."

"My name's Andi."

"Your legal name is Arabella Anderson Petrov. Care to know your social security number and credit score as well?"

"Romance is lost on you." I felt her move around the room. The air seized with electricity; she'd always had a presence about her, and right now I was five seconds away from losing my shit and ramming my head into the fireplace just so I could escape it all.

"Don't I know it," I huffed and reached for the bottle again.

Small warm hands clasped around mine before I could get there. I jerked away, causing her to stumble in front of me.

White-blond hair covered her soft features. Big brown eyes blinked back at me. I hissed in a breath and cursed. "You should go."

"We need to talk."

"Oh goody. Is this the part where you tell me I have to give up my virginity on my wedding night?"

"What?" She blinked like a startled deer, then a weak smile pulled her lips upward.

I ignored the way my body reacted and rolled my eyes in irritation.

"Aw, he has jokes now. At least, I hope it's a joke. You're not, are you? A virgin, I mean."

I snorted and eyed the bottle, calculating my odds on reaching it before she stopped me, then gave up. "Fine." I huffed. "Hurry up and get to talking so I can get drunk."

Andi sat opposite me in the leather chair and tucked her feet under her body. She was small, around five-one, but she packed a punch, knew how to use every automatic weapon on the market, and I was pretty sure I had once overheard that she was well-versed in torture. Looking at her, you'd think she was just graduating high school and getting ready to go shopping for her favorite pair of shoes with Daddy's credit card.

Her eyes narrowed. "You know you can talk to me — since you're stuck with me for the next… while. That is, unless you kill me first… like you did that FBI agent."

My blood ran cold. No one knew about what I'd done last week. When I'd gained intel from another agent. "Her cover was blown. I did her a favor."

"Did you?" Her eyebrows arched.

"Have you ever been shot, Andi?"

She sighed and leaned her head back against the lush cushion. "No, why? Are you going to educate me on what it feels like?"

I exhaled and popped my knuckles; the sound reverberated through the empty room. "It happens in three stages."

"What does?"

"Getting shot."

"You mean you don't just pull the trigger?" she joked.

Ignoring her, I continued. "Shock. It's always the first emotion because the human brain hasn't yet caught up with the fact that you've been wounded. So your body starts going into shock, and then the pain happens, but it's not the type of pain you'd think. It burns, but it's more of an empty, hollow pain, that starts to spread from the wound throughout the rest of your body until a slow chill starts to descend. When the chill descends, the shock wears off and confusion sets in. Why was I shot? Why me? What have I done? As humans, our brains aren't meant to understand violence, so we have to logically explain it away. I had to have done something wrong to get shot. Or maybe I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The minute your brain finds something that makes sense you move onto the last stage."

Andi barely moved a muscle. "Death?"

"Worse." I reached for the bottle and took a long swig. "Denial."

"Why is denial worse?"

"You tell me."

Her eyes closed briefly before she offered a shrug. "Because it means you aren't ready."

"Look who just earned an A in class," I mocked. "And you're right. Denial happens when you realize it shouldn't be you, that even if your brain connected the dots, it isn't yet your time. The lovely little memories of your life start to play on repeat in your head — the moments you should have done something but didn't, the things you'll never say, the things you'll never do. And then… you either get lucky or, if I'm the one who pulled the trigger, your memories will click off after about one minute, and you'll be no more."

The fire crackled.

Andi refused to look at me.

"I'd make it fast, Andi."

"Are we seriously doing this?"

"What?" I shrugged.

"Having a conversation in what should be a nice cozy room, about you killing me?"

"It would be a kindness."

"Go to hell!"

"Already there, Andi. Already there. Don't you know? I belong nowhere. My family's punishing me, the FBI's investigating me for the murder of my superior, and now I have to marry a Russian whore."

"So…" She stood. "…you'd rather kill me than marry me?"

"Was I not clear? I thought I was… Allow me to say it slower, perhaps in Russian? If that's all you people understand." I stood, meeting her chest to chest. "I'd rather kill you than see you suffer… I'd offer a dog the same kindness."

"I'm not a dog."

"You're Russian."

"Stop saying that."

"What?" I sneered. "The truth? Well, sweetheart, it doesn't get any truer than your reality. Allow me to kill you before your family or cancer does, and at least you can own your own death rather than fearing it."

She reached for me, touched my shoulders, and then cupped my face. I hated it because I liked it; my body leaned without me telling it to. She was so warm. "And what makes you think I fear my own death?"

"Everyone is afraid of dying. The hardest part is never admitting we're mortal, but coming to terms with the fact that we have no control over how long we're given. You do."

"No… I don't… You're trying to take that control."

"Say the word." My hand moved to the Glock strapped to my thigh.

"I'm not afraid." Her lips trembled. "At least not of death… but I am afraid of something."

"You wouldn't." She shrugged. "Because you, Sergio Abandonato, are already dead." She moved gracefully across the room. "You're dead inside… and you don't even know it. Forget cancer — and take a long hard look in the mirror — that's what death looks like."

Rachel Van Dyken is the New
York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency
and contemporary romances. When she's not writing you can find her drinking
coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.

She keeps her home in Idaho
with her Husband, adorable son, and two snoring boxers! She loves to hear from
readers!

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a quick note from { mignon } ...

I AM NO LONGER ACTIVE IN REVIEWING

The last two years has been incredibly rewarding, giving me the opportunity to pick up new-to-me authors, as well as new-to-the-world authors. I have enjoyed supporting publishing houses as well as the indie author, and in doing so, I learned a lot about the marketing aspect of writing a book and selling it as a self-published author.

I have re-focused my journey to more writing-minded. I still read and review! But not nearly at the rate I was; three books a day has turned to three books a month.

I will no longer be accepting individual review requests (unless it's specifically author-to-author, then it will be highly considered).

I will definitely be posting reviews for commitments I have already made, though.Thank you for understanding, & thank you to all those I have worked with over the last year plus!

GOODREADS updates

He is the exact public person I despise. You know the type -- all biblical with publicized praying and verses all over his public persona. Great. Good for you. Bet you're not like that behind closed doors...

Which is exactly what Esther thinks of him.

Saint and Esther attend the same super religious college. Esther is on the fast track to becoming a nun, and no I do not kid, and Saint, given name Francis, can do just about whatever he wants, because he is the star athlete and the school knows he has connections. What in the world can these two have in common? The actions of their parents.

But where Saint does what his father says, usually, because his father is pushing him toward a pro-football careers, Esther follows her parents (father) because if she didn't... Her life would literally be a living hell.

I really enjoyed these two, once we started to get to know Saint a little bit better. My only drawback with the book would be the last half goes by in super-fast time. While it helped to keep the story moving, I would have liked to see more of that time drawn out so the feelings and emotions of our two characters felt more genuine and real -- rather than simply a two month courting that their lives demanded.

I'm giving the book the full 5 stars because it came out of left-field for me. It was a book that I didn't expect to like, but the author wove it in a way that I fell hard for our characters both as individuals and as a couple. I liked watching Esther grow and find her voice in life, just as I liked watching playboy, always for the chase Saint, settle down and find a person to be terribly protective over. I loved him most in the last two chapters.

Here's something you may know about me if you've followed my reviews -- I'm an epilogue reader. I will almost always read the epilogue first. Call me a spoilsport or no fun, or whatever but that's how I've been reading books for years. It's no wonder that when I write books, I tend to have the epilogue all figured out before I even start with "Once upon a time...".

That said... I read this epilogue and while I liked it, I just couldn't get past the ages of our characters. Couldn't do it. So I read the beginning. Still... If anything, the age of our characters was even more pronounced. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to read this. You see, I have an issue with "Happily ever after" and the hardly-twenty crowd, let alone an eighteen year old.

But that's my hang-up.

Another thing you may know about me? I will sometimes read a book in what I call a inside-out fashion. I jump all over the place until I find a snippet of story that absolutely grips me. And people -- there are a few of those parts in Everything. So because I found those gripping parts, I put my faith in Erin Noelle, and I started from page one -- and I gave Everett and Belle a chance.

And I'm so glad I did.

Everett and his twin sister have been making music forever -- literally. They're the children of a rockstar; music has always been their life. When their father's group decides to get back together (dad always said he'd go back when the twins were done with school), Mason tells the label -- if you take me, you're taking my kids: thus, giving Everett and Ashlynn the opportunity to take their music to a larger level than they have before.

Along the way, with a local gig, Everett meets Belle -- and so begins their story.

This is a story about growing up. This is a story about following your heart -- be it for a person or a career, or even both. It is about learning to trust the person you are giving your heart to, and about taking the ever-looming jump into unknown feelings. When you put your life, your wants, your desires in someone else's hands, the world opens up -- and it certainly does for Everett and Belle.

The part I most appreciated was that the author made Everett true to his age and situation. Belle was too, yes, but it was Everett and his new lifestyle that had me wanting to see true characterization for. He's a guy; he's a musician; he's new to love. He makes mistakes. And for those mistakes, I truly got on board with this story.

Everett and his Tinker Bell were incredibly cute. I liked that there's a decent time jump at the end, further allowing -- you guessed it -- growth of our characters. I'm excited to watch more of them when (if?) Ashlynn's story comes out.

TOURING with ...

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FTC Disclosure

Unless otherwise stated, all books I review are books I've received for free from the author or publisher. I receive nothing, monetary or otherwise, for expressing my opinion and/or promoting the books. I do, however, participate in the Amazon Affiliate program, and as such I do receive a small commission when these links are clicked. Affiliate links and free books in no way affect my opinion.